Before deciding on a dog for your home, it is equally important to consider both the dog and the childs behaviors. Most of the time, dogs wont bite unless theyre provoked. There is usually some kind of a trigger—something obvious like a child poking and hitting the dog, or something subtle like the dog feeling too possessive when the child gets too close to its food bowl or toy. It takes time and patience to teach a child to be nice and respectful of the dog, and to train the dog to be tolerant of the child and to accept people handling its possessions, and all of these are situations that are possible to avoid.
All child and dogs play needs to be supervised until your child is old enough to interact with the dog independently. Toddlers are especially risky because they lack coordination, but they are really curious and they are wanting to touch and explore everything around them. A toddler can frighten the dog with a jerky arm movement, fall on the dog or startle him. Use baby gates, dog crates, x-pens (which are portable stand alone dog fences), and playpens to keep the kids and dogs separated when you are not in the room.
